How Gavroche Got His Gun
by AMarguerite
Summary: During the revolution of 1830, Gavroche annoys Bahorel into getting him a cannon.


"Give me a gun," shouted a little gamin to Bahorel's right.

"Do you know how to shoot?" asked Bahorel, glancing over at him. Sunlight flashed off of a bayonet in front of the gamin. Bahorel's carbine was empty; he swung it like a singlestick at the solider attempting to mount the barricade and cracked the barrel of his gun over the soldier's fingers. Bahorel heard the click of a pistol to his right; he ducked as Combeferre took quick and careful aim and hit the soldier in the shoulder. The soldier fell backwards, _sans _rifle, onto the mass of his fellows.

Bahorel's first impulse was to leap over the barricade to lead the charge towards the _Tuileries, just up the street_, but Courfeyrac, at the center of the barricade shouted, "Ware of cannon there, Bahorel!"

Bahorel pulled the gamin down just as a cannonball sailed overhead.

"Looks like you don't need to know how to shoot to use a gun," said the gamin, rather snottily.

"No, but it helps," Bahorel replied.

"Give me the soldier's gun."

"No, with Bossuet's luck, you'll stab him instead of anyone on the other side of the barricade," called out Combeferre, who had grabbed the gun and leapt down from the barricade to reload, Bossuet moving to cover the new gap.

"I am all for avoiding unnecessary stab wounds," agreed Bossuet, repositioning his rifle between the spokes of a carriage wheel.

Bahorel slid down the barricade himself, once he spotted Jehan running up with two pistols in his tricolor sash. He clasped Jehan's hand briefly as he descended and Jehan scrambled up.

"How is the weather?" asked Jehan, cheerfully.

"Nearly apocalyptic with all the smoke," replied Bahorel, ignoring the gamin pulling on his waistcoat. "Good luck seeing clearly."

Jehan dismissed this with a wave of his hand, as he pulled out his pistol. "The poet is the visionary of the nineteenth century, he sees without using the eyes."

"And can he shoot without using the eyes?" asked Bahorel.

"Well, we shall have to test that hypothesis, won't we?" asked Joly, cheerful and excited. He was binding up a minor bayonet wound on a new fellow, with a name so punnily suited to his profession Bahorel was sure Courfeyrac had made it up. Joly sneezed suddenly, tightening the bandages too much and causing the new fellow's arm to twitch.

The wounded man winced. "_Cur ante tubam tremor occupat artus_?"

"Virgil?" asked Bahorel, trying to simultaneously shoo away the gamin and grab a new ammunition box. "Hated him a little less than other Latin authors the village cure made me learn."

"You at the law school or the Sorbonne?" asked Joly.

"I'm a fan painter."

The gamin would not be shooed. Bahorel brushed him aside to grab a powder flash. "I'm out of ammunition and I don't have another gun. Tugging on my waistcoat isn't going to load my weapon or somehow get you yours."

"The blond fellow is trying to get your attention!"

Bahorel looked up to where Enjolras was, in the thick of the fighting. It was difficult to see the gleam of Enjolras's blond hair through the drifting smoke, or to hear him shouting when the cannons roared out defiance to the French people.

"Go scramble up and see what he wants, I'll be thirty seconds behind you." Bahorel knew from experience that hastily loading a gun was a poor choice (it was a good way to lose a finger and a sheep instead of frightening off a wolf), but he was quick about his task.

"There are National Guardsmen coming too," the gamin informed Bahorel proudly, meeting him half-way up the barricade.

Enjolras spun his empty carbine in a _moulinet horizontale, _knocking out the soldier in front of him. He scanned the street before them and then called out, "Bahorel!"

Bahorel scrambled up. "Yes- ah, National Guardsmen behind the soldiers. Too bad Charles X disbanded them in April. That's too recent an insult to be easily forgiven."

Enjolras flashed him the charming smile that was all the more effective for its rarity. "Indeed. He must be sincerely regretting that he neglected to disarm the disbanded force."

Courfeyrac gave a loud whoop and pointed at the National Guardsmen with his sword. The soldiers trying to rush up in front of him turned to look and then began pointing their muskets at the Guardsmen instead. "Look they've got Polytechnicians before them, I could spot those red and black uniforms through a London fog- they're going to attack the soldiers!"

"But the cannons are still pointed at us," Bahorel replied, waving away the smoke. "Loading it with grapeshot, I reckon, the soldiers are all rushing out of the way."

"Everybody down!" shouted Enjolras, turning to repeat his message on both sides of the barricade. Courfeyrac leapt down nimbly enough, but Bossuet was caught on a splintered carriage wheel.

"An unusual sort of Gordian knot," muttered Bossuet, tugging fruitlessly at his shirt.

"Throw up your sword, Courfeyrac!" shouted Bahorel, as Jehan failed to untangle Bossuet.

Courfeyrac attempted to do so, but as swords were not long-range weapons, it got embedded into a wine cask below them instead. The gamin skittered horizontally across the barricade as nimbly as a crab across the sea shore, tugged out the sword and presented it to Bahorel.

"I'm going to want that back when you're done," said the gamin, as Bahorel hastily chopped off part of Bossuet's shirtsleeve.

"I thought you wanted a gun," said Bahorel, grabbing the gamin by the collar. "Courfeyrac, I hope you can catch better than you can throw!" He tossed the gamin down as he would have tossed around sacks of grain at home, much to the gamin's squealing delight. Courfeyrac caught him with the practiced ease of one accustomed to using younger relations as projectiles, and then raced with him into the gutted print shop that, having been shut down by Charles X, now had its illegal contents repurposed by the new republic. Courfeyrac and Joly had made a series of bad puns about a literal republic of letters earlier on, and now Bossuet exclaimed, as he skirted a pot of melting typeface, "Talk about a war of words!"

Bahorel jumped down just as they heard the cannons rumbling along the cobblestones and dove behind a bench where Joly and Combeferre were tending to the wounded. The echoing boom of cannonfire faded without any sign of splinters flying overhead.

"I suppose ours was really a well-built barricade," said Joly, a little dubiously.

Bahorel and Combeferre looked over the bench. The barricade was entirely intact.

"They fired at the National Guardsmen," said Enjolras, already back on the barricade. "Come now, to arms! _Au secours _to our brothers!"

Courfeyrac poked his head out of the print-shop. "Are we really getting to storm the Tuileries from the Palais-Royale?"

Bahorel grinned. "You're easily satisfied. I personally won't be happy until I see fishwives marching on Saint-Cloud."

"Hey there, you great ox," exclaimed the gamin, grabbing onto Bahorel's waistcoat again. "I saved the bald fellow and you never gave me back the sword. I demand a pistol at the very least!"

"Combeferre, can we not have the redistribution of wealth?" demanded Bahorel, as Combeferre began packing up his arsenal.

"I am not about to give a bayonet to a nine-year-old," said Combeferre, darkly. "The whole goal of this revolution is to put a book into his hands instead. Don't forget your ammunition Bahorel."

Bahorel took the pouch from Combeferre then turned to the gamin with a wink. "Stay right behind the barricade as we go over and you can pick up whatever's left behind."

"You'll carry all the good guns over the barricade."

"I meant behind _us, _not behind the barricade."

The gamin perked up at once.

"Blood-thirsty little tyke, aren't you?" asked Bahorel, fondly. "You remind me so much of me at nine-years-old, only I was always getting in trouble for amateur bullfighting instead of armed insurrection."

The gamin looked suitably flattered by this tribute. Bahorel was not surprised, when he was following Enjolras over the barricade, to see the little gamin not far behind him. Bahorel make a point of leading an assault on the group of artillery officers unsure which way to aim their cannon. It was a quick and bloody fight, most of the soldiers breaking ranks and trying to run down side-streets five minutes after Bahorel, Jehan and Courfeyrac had shot at them. Bahorel touched the barrel of the canon, delighting in his victory. It was cooling still, but not unpleasant to the touch.

The gamin weaved his way between Bahorel's legs to wrestle a pistol off of a wounded artillery sergeant.

"Here you go," Bahorel said, scooping up the gamin and sitting him on the cannon. "This is _much _better than a pistol."

"Ah," said the gamin, delighted. "This is _exactly _the sort of gun I had in mind."


End file.
